Sisters of the Caucus, read and remember come November. Let your representative know how you feel about these vouchers decimating our public schools.

1. State government has under funded public education for most of the last 20 years. almost 484,000 Iowa children attend public schools, and about 36,000 attend private schools.

2. As programs were shut down and class sizes rose to nearly unmanageable levels, the governor and her cronies “revealed” how bad those public schools really were/are (even though the decline happened under their leadership and they don’t seem to take any responsibility for that). Then they said that teachers were groomers and teaching far left content, even though there was no data to support those claims.

3. The governor introduced a voucher bill in 2022, saying that parents were entitled to choice – that parents know best and the state should pay for “their choice.” The majority of Iowans were opposed, but still hearing regularly from public officials at the statehouse that public schools were run by the dangerous “union,” failing badly, and filled with predators teaching students to be LGBTQ.

4. Because that voucher bill in step 3 failed, the governor went after those legislators in her own party who recognized vouchers would be budget busters and there were very few private schools in rural counties. She found primary opponents in their districts who said they would vote for her voucher bill and with her support they won. She scared many legislators into voting for the voucher boondoggle.

5. #4 worked. In the 2023 session with the new Republican votes the Governor gained by campaigning against legislators in her own party, she now could pass her voucher bill. The new legislature passed and the governor signed the bill which included no limits as to the number of vouchers that could be issued, almost no accountability for student learning, nor would there be any oversight regarding how those private schools would spend all those tax dollars. Exactly what she wanted.

6. The first year the voucher bill cost $29 million more than anticipated.

7. Now Rob Sand has found that the fees going to the company that will administer the vouchers, located in New York, is double what was included when the bill was passed.

8. Meanwhile, many private schools raised their tuition after the vouchers had passed, and addred to that almost $8000 per child from taxes. Public schools received the same $8000 per pupil increase, a 2.5% increase, once again less than the cost of living. The legislature and governor did include a nice raise for beginning public school teachers from $33,500 to. Mid career public school teachers also received a pay raise, but it gives birth to not come close to what the private sector pays mid career employees. And to add a little frosting to her cake, the money for new and mid-career teachers has only been allocated for two years.

Vouchers are budget busters. 95% of the private schools in Iowa are religious. The research is clear that vouchers haven’t raised academic achievement in other states, and in fact, sometimes the results indicated falling academic achievement. I continue to wonder what happened to our state, a place where religion was the purview of the family and is now being taught in private schools, paid for with public dollars. And public schools are gasping for oxygen.